Wednesday, May 11, 2011

No miracle healings « Why Evolution Is True

There’s been a long history of skeptics refusing to accept divine “healings” because those healings are precisely the sort that could occur spontaneously. We never see the type of cure that would be truly miraculous. In “Seeing and believing“, my strident New Republic article that ticked of all the accommodationists, I recount this possibly apocryphal story: Read More

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

National Day of Reason

The purpose of the National Day of Reason is to celebrate reason—a concept all Americans can support—and to raise public awareness about the persistent threat to religious liberty posed by government intrusion into the private sphere of worship. Read On

Skepticblog » Reality Check

In recent years, both philosophers and science deniers (such as creationists) have repeatedly attacked the objectivity of science and scientists. Creationists claim that scientists are big frauds, deceived by a mass delusion about evolution. They argue that the stratigraphic sequence of fossils in the rock record is faked by evolutionists who shuffle the fossils and the strata in the order they need to prove evolution, then allegedly point to the same sequence as proof of evolution. (Never mind the fact that the objective, empirical sequence of fossils through geologic time was worked out by devoutly religious naturalists like William Smith and Georges Cuvier before 1800, at least 50 years before evolution was published by Charles Darwin).
Read On

Science-Based Medicine » Anti-vaccine propaganda from Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News

I’m not infrequently asked why the myth that vaccines cause autism and other anti-vaccine myths are so stubbornly resistant to the science that time and time again fails to support them. Certainly useful celebrity idiots like Jenny McCarthy are one reason. So, too, are anti-vaccine propaganda websites and blogs such as Age of Autism and anti-vaccine organizations like Generation Rescue, the National Vaccine Information Center, and SafeMinds and the organizations that publish them. However, these are clearly not the only reason.
Read On

Thursday, April 14, 2011

The Disappearing God



This blog is accompanied by an image of the Crab Nebula. The creation of the Crab Nebula corresponds to the bright SN 1054 supernova that was recorded by Chinese and Arab astronomers in 1054 CE. This nebula is about 7,000 light years away. No religion would have ever told you that.

There have probably been around 20 or 30 supernovas within 40 light-years of us during the past 5 billion years. Several of those supernovas supplied their elemental remnants to the cloud of dust that congealed to form our solar system. Elements heavier that iron, such as gold and uranium, are formed from the intense heat of a supernova explosion. You are made from such explosions. No religion would ever tell you that either.
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Friday, April 8, 2011

Storm by Tim Minchin

Entertaining little video deposing pseudoscience and religion while showing the value of science.


Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Cosmic Bubble Theory Of Universe Expansion Ruled Out

Researchers say they have ruled the cosmic bubble theory, an alternate theory on the nature of dark energy, after recalculating the expansion rate of the universe to unprecedented accuracy.

Top 15 Misconceptions about Evolution

"Biological evolution is descent with modification. This definition encompasses small-scale evolution (changes in gene frequency in a population from one generation to the next) and large-scale evolution (the descent of different species from a common ancestor over many generations). Evolution helps us to understand the history of life. While evolution is very widely accepted, many people hold to misconceptions about it. This list should help to dispel some of those myths."
Top 15 Misconceptions about Evolution

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Is This Your Brain On God? : NPR

More than half of adult Americans report they have had a spiritual experience that changed their lives. Now, scientists from universities like Harvard, Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins are using new technologies to analyze the brains of people who claim they have touched the spiritual — from Christians who speak in tongues to Buddhist monks to people who claim to have had near-death experiences. Hear what they have discovered in this controversial field, as the science of spirituality continues to evolve.
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